Advocates say poor Ohioans suffering under welfare-to-work changes

View full sizeAdvocates for the poor say the new welfare-to-work standards are overly harsh. Many poor residents have transportation, child-care issues or mental health problems, that make it difficult to hold onto low-wage jobs.Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio is exceeding a federal requirement that at least half of welfare recipients have jobs, but advocates for the poor say the net result has been a sharp reduction of welfare rolls that has pushed many deeper into poverty.

The state had been under pressure to meet tougher welfare-to-work standards adopted in 2007, or face $135 million in penalties. In 2010, about 25 percent of Ohio's recipients were employed, but that number has grown to 55 percent as the state has reduced the number of eligible families.

The welfare rolls have declined by about 100,000 statewide since January 2011, leaving about 132,000. Some 60,000 of those cut were children.

While numbers reported by the state sometimes fluctuate within the same month, as people enter and leave the program, the state web site shows that in Cuyahoga County, 16,465 received cash assistance in May, compared to 24,153 in January 2011.

In Summit County, the drop has been particularly sharp, with 5,123 receiving assistance in May, compared to 15,669 in January 2011.

"We have met our work requirements by throwing people off," said Jack Frech, director of the Athens County Department of Jobs and Family Services, and a critic of the state's handling of welfare reform.

"It's scary to think the state agency responsible for meeting families' needs has abandoned it," he said.

ODJFS spokesman Benjamin Johnson said the state is not kicking people off welfare. Benefits are suspended for recipients who don't meet work requirements, but they can be reinstated.

Statewide, 30 percent of people who leave the program do so because they failed to meet the work requirement, Johnson said. Most lose benefits for other reasons, including changes in income or family circumstances, or because they exhausted a maximum 36-month benefit period.

Johnson said the caseload has declined because the economy has created more jobs as the state has enforced welfare-to-work requirements.

"We feel really good about where we are. Work participation rates have gone up around the state," Johnson said.

Advocates for the poor say the new standards are overly harsh. Many poor residents have transportation, child-care issues or mental health problems, that make it difficult to hold onto low-wage jobs. Critics say the state has not done enough to provide job training and help people find work, and say county-level officials are routinely denying hardship exemptions.

"Anyone who is trying to live without an income certainly is having a hardship," said Gene King, director of the Ohio Poverty Law Center. Hardship extensions "are harder or impossible to obtain in some counties. There's no legal justification for that."

Tarra Hall, a 34-year-old mother of three boys, lost her monthly $536 benefit in November 2011. She said in an interview she couldn't make rent, and now the family is living at the Zelma George Family Shelter of the Salvation Army in downtown Cleveland.

"It's hard, especially when they don't give you any job training before they cut you off," said Hall.

She said she suffers from mental illness that makes it difficult to hold down a job, but she has looked for work without success. Hall said she had prostituted herself and stolen to support herself and her sons.

"I stopped, but I still have to find a way to pay the rent," she said, fighting back tears. "I would do anything to work because I have to take care of these kids."

Johnson of the state ODJFSsaid the state has taken steps to help the poor enter the workforce. The new Ohio budget includes $42 million for job support services, such as transportation, and an additional $33 million for employment centers.

"We want counties to have this money set aside so they can address some of these issues," he said.

Additional job supports are sorely needed, said Prisscilla Cooper, who oversees the nonprofit Family Connection Center, a Cleveland advocacy group.

"There are not enough jobs for unskilled workers, which most mothers are," she said.

Some parents who have lost cash assistance reluctantly send their children to live with relatives so the children can be eligible for benefits, she said.

"They have to in order to survive."

Barbara Butler, program manager for the Zelma George Family Shelter, said she has seen hundreds of people with stories like Tarra Hall's.

"The system needs to be revamped," she said. "Every person applying for welfare needs to be in a job training program for those 36 months, so when their benefits run out they are trained in something."

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